The evening of Wednesday 12 August into the morning of Thursday 13 August sees the annual maximum of the Perseid meteor shower. This year, a new moon makes prospects for watching this natural firework display particularly ...

The annual Perseid meteor shower is one of the best and most reliable meteor showers of the year. It peaks every year around the 12th/13th August, and under ideal conditions produces a maximum frequency of meteors, or zenith ...

stronaut Ron Garan, Expedition 28 flight engineer, tweeted this image from the International Space Station in August, 2011 with the following caption: "What a `Shooting Star' looks like from space, taken yesterday during ...

Meteors have been seen since people first looked at the night sky. They are comprised of small pieces of debris, typically no larger than a grain of dust or sand, which continually crash into the Earth's atmosphere.

Jupiter will dominate the night during January from the time it rises until dawn, soaring high across the sky in the constellation Leo the Lion about 10 degrees northwest of Leo's brightest star, Regulus.

"Watch therefore, for ye know not the day nor the hour," could be still an actual description of our ability to predict asteroid threats to Earth. The sentence from the Bible (Matthew 25:13) sounds like a reminder of a vast ...

If it's clear late on Saturday and Sunday nights (the nights of December 13th and 14th), keep a lookout high overhead for the "shooting stars" of the Geminid meteor shower. "The Geminids are usually one of the two best meteor ...

The Geminid meteor shower is the last, and one of the best, major meteor showers of the year. The meteors, or "shooting stars", can be seen at any time from late evening onwards during the period 7–17 December and with ...

Meteoroid

A meteoroid is a sand- to boulder-sized particle of debris in the Solar System. The visible path of a meteoroid that enters Earth's (or another body's) atmosphere is called a meteor, or colloquially a shooting star or falling star. If a meteoroid reaches the ground and survives impact, then it is called a meteorite. Many meteors appearing seconds or minutes apart are called a meteor shower. The root word meteor comes from the Greek meteo¯ros, meaning "high in the air". The Minor Planet Center does not use the term "meteoroid".